


little wanderer

by erasvita



Category: Those Who Went Missing
Genre: Journaling, TWWM, esk, pcthike
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26941459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erasvita/pseuds/erasvita
Summary: Something is watching her from between the trees.





	1. an odd discovery

_Journals are not usually found in the middle of the woods._

_This one has clearly been left out here for a while, its leather-bound cover half buried beneath soil and moss, wedged into a crease that runs the length of a tree. Whoever put it there had forgotten it — or, perhaps, they did not have a chance to go back and retrieve it. Either way, it has been left behind in a remote spot far enough removed from the trail as to not be seen._

_But it leaves the reader wondering, what was it doing there to begin with?It is not a place most hikers visit. It’s rather unremarkable, actually. So what was the writer thinking, coming here to begin with?Unfortunately, the journals raises more questions than it answers._

_Despite the moss creeping over the face of it, its left relatively well-intact. A single dark blemish stains its cover beneath the moss, some dried liquid creased into the tooled ridges and valleys. The edges of the paper are browned and crinkled. But cracking it open, its as if it was never left outside in the elements for all this time. Its pages are still smooth and crisp, the handwriting unsmudged and printed in neat lines across each page. Nearly every page is filled with entries, accentuated by small doodles of birds, and flowers, and trees. It was a well-loved journal, one written in daily for several months. It details the life of a young woman beginning her first through-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, and her excitement at making a dream of her’s become a reality. For pages upon pages she writes about the wonderful nature she passes through, the strange creatures she encounters, her experiences with the wildlife and her joy at discovering a world so unlike the one she left in the city, one that is much more alive than she ever could have dreamed._

_But further into the journal, the handwriting becomes less neat and more rushed appearing. As if the writer was in such a frenzy to jot down her words before —_

_Before what?_


	2. the journal

04/24  
I bought this journal today, not sure why considering I haven’t journaled in probably years, or written anything other than school papers. I saw it at the store in the laundry detergent section, far away from Office & Supplies where the rest of its buddies are, abandoned by someone who was probably giving up their dreams of becoming a writer but was too ashamed to return it properly. I don’t know, something about it stuck out. I planned on getting a book for my trip, and probably still will, but maybe some self reflection will do me good. That’s the whole point, anyway, and a journal makes it feel more “official.” Like I actually have a goal, I suppose, like I’m not just some random hiker who has no business being on the trail. I guess we’ll see if I actually use it. 

Today marks a week before I leave. It doesn’t feel real yet; I have almost all of my gear but I haven’t packed any of it. Part of me is worried it won’t all fit, another part of me is too afraid to try to make it fit. I guess there’s some stuff I don’t need, backpackers don’t need luxury items, but it’d be nice. 

Anyway. I probably shouldn’t use up too many pages before the trip itself. 


	3. anticipation

06/14  
Tomorrow marks the unofficial start of my trip. 

I’ve packed and re-packed my bag at least four times now, trying to find the best way to cram every piece of gear into it. I’m not sure if I got better or worse with each try, but at least everything is there, and it isn’t likely to explode on me. I’m still not sure I believe the guides on the “every ounce matters”; so far, no matter what I take out, it doesn’t seem to change the way the pack feels on my back. Maybe that’ll be different when I’m 50 miles in like everyone says, I can always get rid of stuff at camps and pit stops. I guess I’ll find out?

It still seems surreal. Everyone I’ve told has had one of two reactions: either they think I’m crazy, or they applaud me for my sense of adventure. I’m not sure I feel very adventurous or like I deserve any recognition. I just want to do something meaningful, see something meaningful. There’s too much crappy in this world, I know there’s gotta be beauty somewhere, and I want to find it. I want some answers. I want to accomplish something. Somehow it feels like if I can do this, I can do anything. 

Even writing that it feels so naive. 

T-minus 10 hours. Better get some sleep.


	4. a rocky start

06/15  
Gabby dropped me off at the trail today. We hardly talked the entire drive up; there was a silence we couldn’t get through. She asked me if I was sure about all this; I said yes, but I’m not sure I felt so sure. I think she could tell. 

When we got to camp, the ranger told us there weren’t any sites left that we could stay the night in. Gabby was supposed to camp with me tonight; we were going to toast to the wild and start my adventure with a bang. It’s illegal to camp in cars here, so I decided to just start the trail a day early. Gabby is probably back home already, watching netflix on the couch with some popcorn and wine. She looked relieved to leave me here. I don’t blame her, she’s not much of a wilderness girl. 

As for me, I’m chilling in my one-woman tent, holding a flashlight in my mouth so I can write this. Everything fit in my pack, I’m glad I’d practiced setting up my tent last week, and my bear box is stashed safely downwind. The hike wasn’t too bad, saw some squirrels along the way, crossed a perennial stream. I think I’m off to a good start. It’s too late to turn back at any rate, at least tonight. 

  


06/16  
Did I ever mention I’m scared of the dark? Cliche, I know, but all horror movies and nightmares have at least one pivotal scene that takes place under the cover of night. But let me tell you, I never thought I’d be living in one of those nightmares. 

To say waking up to the sound of scratches in nearly complete darkness was a shock would be an understatement. I literally felt my heart stop beating, the blood draining from my face when I saw the outline of a bear outside my tent. Who the heck sees a bear on their first night backpacking??

I don’t think I breathed for a solid minute, just praying it would go away on its own. I eventually mustered up enough courage to arm myself with one of my walking poles and a swiss army knife before, very firmly, telling the bear to “go away.” Pretty sure my voice was shaking and it only turned away because it thought I’d make a poor meal with not enough meat, but either way I didn’t get eaten. I count that a bonus.

Still off to a good start.

  


06/16 (later that day)  
A pretty uneventful day, if we’re not including the bear from this morning. I’ve hiked this section of the trail a hundred times before, but it feels different now knowing it’s only the first day of many. It’s so surreal, I’ve been waiting to start this through-hike for years and now that I’m finally here, it feels like I’m seeing it all for the first time. 

There’s a tree roundabouts twenty miles in that was struck by lightning years and years ago. I’ve passed it so many times now, but today I had to stop and really look at it. I haven’t really appreciated it before. I wonder who the first person to see it after the storm was? Or if anyone was there when it happened, can you imagine that? The lightning left such a cool pattern running up its trunk, the whole thing is nearly split in two from it. And how old was that tree before it was struck by lightning? This trail has existed for decades, and for most of that time this tree was just an ordinary tree that probably blended into all the rest of them. 

Until something extraordinary happened to it. Freak chance. 

I should probably get to bed. I’m pretty tired after being up half of last night worrying about bears. 

  


06/17  
We’re all starting to spread out a bit now. Most of the day I didn’t really see anyone. I’m towards the back of the pack, naturally; I don’t want to really push myself yet, just in case I aggravate all my old injuries and all. It will be a miserable hike if I start limping less than a week in. Still, I hope I don’t get passed by too many hikers that start in later groups. That would just be embarrassing. 

I knew most of the hike would be this way, and I’ve never had a problem hiking alone before — but still. It’s weird thinking I could go days without seeing anyone. Anything could happen out here. How long would it take someone to find me? What if I come across someone else who needs help? 

I’m probably still shaken up by the bear. Everything is going to be fine. 

  


06/18  
Fifty miles in as of today! Well technically I’m at sixty-five, but it’s a good milestone to cross off. Baby steps and all. 

It’s so beautiful out here. I mean I live here, so I know it is, but I’m really in it now. Living in nature. I can almost overlook the lack of hygiene as a good thing. I'm still behind all the others, but it doesn't feel like such a bad thing anymore. We all do this thing at our own pace after all, and it's why I started in the first wave. To take my time.

Just one step after the other. One mile after the other. One mountain at a time. I will finish this trail.

  


06/19  
Today was a strange day.

I woke up this morning and there was a dead bird laying in front of my tent. It wasn’t even stiff yet, and I swear the blood of it was still warm. It was missing a wing, as if it had been torn straight off — but the strangest part? There were no animal tracks around it. No anything. Just a bloodied bird laying on my doorstep.

It was as if it had been placed there on purpose.

Rationally I know it was probably dropped by a passing hawk or something, and it’s just coincidence. Who would leave it there, anyway? There were no other campsites around mine. But my dad always liked to say that everything happens for a reason, and besides, what are the odds? It was even angled as if it were still in flight, pointed at the opening of my tent. 

And that’s not the half of it. I didn’t hear a single bird sing today on my entire hike. And the whole while I just kept thinking of how birds know when a storm is coming, and will take shelter early. It was perfectly nice out, blue skies and fair weather, a beautiful day, and yet no birds anywhere.

My mind is probably playing tricks on me. I’m sure there’s a perfectly normal explanation for all of this, it’ll probably come to me tomorrow morning. For now, I just hope I don’t wake up to another bloodied bird.

  


06/20  
Yesterday was probably just a fluke. No bloodied birds on my doorstep, and the birds sang all day long. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see sparrows! And I know I’ve never paid so much attention to birdsong before, but it’s actually quite beautiful. Each bird has their own voice, and when they all sing together it’s like nature’s greatest symphony. Everything was back to normal. I’m still not sure where all the birds went yesterday, but there’s no sense in dwelling on it now.

  


06/21  
Today is a week! One week out of the twenty-one planned. My calves are starting to ache, but that’s to be expected, and the other hikers I’ve talked to have said that goes away soon enough. 

One week. It feels silly to get so excited about such a small milestone, considering how far I have yet to go. But hey! I’m here, and I’m making the most out of it, and I’m determined to remember everything. After five years I’m finally doing it. And isn’t that what matters?

I hope my mom is watching, wherever she is now. I hope I’m making her proud. I love you, Mom. And I miss you more than anything. 

  


06/22  
You know, I’m actually a little surprised by how consistent I’ve been with this journal. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll actually run out of room in it before the trip ends, writing every day like I am. And yet everything feels so new and exciting still, I don’t want to forget a single part of this trail. I’m sure that will wear off in a month or so, but for now — for now, I could write entire sonnets about the way the sunlight looks glinting off the pine needles in the morning, and how I could swear each meadow I trek through is more beautiful than the last. And it struck me today how I’m only a small part of everything around me; even the squirrels have an entire life that I don’t see that goes on before and after I pass through here. And these trees! Some of them are ancient. I can’t even imagine.

To think that I’ve never even noticed before. Humans are selfish creatures indeed.


	5. Chapter 5

_The next several pages detail her adventures through old-growth forests and wildflower meadows. Everything is in bloom this time of year, painting the landscape in a thousand colors that follow her into her dreams each night._

_In the margins of the journal she sketches down lupine and poppies and black-eyed susans, and laments not having proper watercolors to capture their true beauty (“I never was much of a painter,” she writes in one of her entries, “but now would have been the perfect opportunity to pick it up. If only I could express to you how vivid the flowers are, how welcome it is to see them after days spent in the shade beneath the trees. It’s like I’ve been colorblind all my life, and am only just now seeing colors as they were meant to be seen.”)_

_She averages twelve miles a day, sometimes less on the days when her healed-over injuries begin to flare again or the terrain gets particularly rough. Some days she hikes well into the evening and breaks camp late, feeling pressured to cover as much ground as she can to make up for her slower pace. All of this she transcribes into the journal each night._

_But sometimes, the landscapes she paints with words are broken up by short, strange entries, the tone of which makes it seem as though they were written by someone else._

06/25  
I saw an eagle today. A large golden eagle, perched at the top of a dead tree. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one on this side of the Cascades before, I mistook him for a vulture at first from a distance. It wasn’t until I was nearly underneath him that I looked up and saw he was still there, and only then did I realize he was no vulture. But what made him unique is —

I swear he was watching me.

The whole time, watching me come closer and closer down the trail. As if he were waiting for me. When I looked up at him his head was angled down towards me, like I was a rabbit he was waiting to dive upon. And his eyes — they sent chills down my spine. 

My dad always did say I had an overactive imagination. Maybe he was right.

But I could feel the eagle watching me long after I passed him on the trail. Every time I looked back he was in the exact same place, his eyes boring holes into my back. He was still there when I at last went over a hill and the tree he perched upon was out of sight.

I realize now, I did not hear a single bird sing that entire time.


	6. epilogue

_There are no more entries in the journal. The last few pages are blank, marked only by a few spatters of dark, dried blood. Nothing else was found, not the girl who wrote down her experiences on the trail or any of her other belongings._

_This journal is all that is left. And it leaves the reader who found it wondering —_

_What happened on the trail? Was something really following her like she thought? And is it still out there somewhere, waiting, watching?_


End file.
